St. Teresa lives rent free in my brain (August 6-12)
This week’s snapshots:
Happy Saturday, nerds!
Thank you for your help last week - despite my egregious discouragement, we’ve overall agreed that letters are better than postcards especially because letters demand a response where postcards cannot (: So, here’s to more letters forth (and hopefully even some back, too!)
Happily, I have spent this past week in my home-away-from-home: Minneapolis! Unhappily, it has been a doozy of a trip and I am very much ready to take a long nap or two while re-packing my suitcase for some personal travel. This might be my last trip to this cathedral - but then again, I thought last trip would be my last trip to this cathedral, so we’ll see!
My foreman hasn’t been out to MN quite as much as I have, and is always stunned by how Catholic this state is. Last time I was out here, I was reading a Catholic Saint! Actually, one of the quotes from St. Teresa is still stopping me in my tracks.
“We are bound to show respect to the portrait of our King wherever we see it.”
It’s so simple and yet I find it absolutely provocative.
“We are bound…” I’m not required to, I’ve promised no oath to, and yet there is something within me that unwittingly will, will have to respond. I might as well be obligated to respond, but I’m not obligated to respond. Response, however, is an inevitability. Something about the King both frees me to choose and ties up my choice all at the same time! How dare he!
*sigh* but really, I’d have it no other way.
“… to show respect …” If you’ve ever played Mao with me, you may recall that you got carded often for “failing to show proper respect” to particular cards. You may recall that you said a lot of very respectful phrases and still received cards because your respect wasn’t proper enough. As a non-Catholic, I don’t get caught up with the “proper” ways to show respect because I believe God when he says he judges the heart and if my heart-posture aligns with respect, I count on his grace to cover the propriety. And yet - there are proper ways to show respect. If you are a Catholic, the bows, the crossing, and even the cardinal direction you face contribute to proper respect. How perplexingly encouraging then, that I am bound to show respect!
“… to the portrait of our King …” Protestants have long accused Catholics of idolatry because of their use of saints and images in their churches - which is hilarious, because the Catholics have been accusing Orthodoxy of idolatry for centuries before because of their use of iconography.
But I don’t suspect you and I or our more historical brothers and sisters use images in our idolatry. So where are the portraits of the King in your home?
(If you’re my roommate, this question is rhetorical. For the rest of us, I’m actually asking.)
As someone who grew up in a Catholic country (where every doorframe holds a crucifix), you actually become blind to that portrait of the King. The agony of the cross becomes commonplace, and it requires the binding of intentional liturgy to remember its holiness… so what arrests me about this phrase is, quite simply, the next phrase.
“… wherever we see it.” I see the portrait of my King so often in people around me. Like you, for example! I probably won’t tell you I’m seeing Jesus in you, and you probably won’t catch me grinning like a goofball when I see Him in you because usually, you’re wholly caught up in something or someone else.
I’m sure you can relate to this experience - feel free to tell me what it reminds you of. When I was in Florida, my coworkers and I played several rounds of a board game (Root) in our hotel lobby. While I was waiting for my turn, I noticed a woman, probably in her 40s, at a table near us. She was eating her dinner, oblivious to our rambunctious group of goobers, and I saw His portrait in her. I felt His joy as she received her meal, and was in quiet awe of his masterpiece. There was nothing about her that should have drawn my attention; she was a businesswoman eating soup in a hotel lobby in Florida. I kept glancing back at her between my turns though, because somehow, with her blonde hair and flowery blouse, I saw the deep and abiding love of Jesus.
We are bound to show respect to the portrait of our King wherever we see it.
It’s definitely easier to cross yourself whenever you see a crucifix than it is to keep eyes that can see His portrait wherever you look. Because sometimes you’re looking at a traumatized teenager who hates your guts right now and it might not be convenient to be bound to show respect. Annnnnd sometimes you’re looking at ancient politicians who have no right to be in office and you’ll be shooketh by the portraiture.
I gotta stop before I actually provoke myself - does the quote provoke you even out of context? What do you think shows “proper respect” to the portrait of the King? Do you even have portraits of Jesus in you home? Why (not)?
Please talk to me about it xD
—Beth
